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Eastern Lancaster County School Board nixes prayers before meetings

By PATRICK BURNS, Lancaster Online

Updated:
11/11/2012 06:06:54 PM EST

There will be no traditional prayer offered before the Eastern Lancaster County School Board meeting Monday.

The board decided to halt the practice after the district was targeted in August by The Freedom From Religion Foundation in Madison, Wisc., which maintains that prayers at board meetings are unconstitutional.

Superintendent Robert Hollister said the Anti-Defamation League of Philadelphia also pressured Elanco to halt the prayer or face litigation.

Hollister notified FFRF after the October board meeting that Elanco would no longer open with an alternating board member leading with a prayer.

"After consultation with our solicitor, it was clear that the district would lose the lawsuit," Hollister said in an email Thursday. "So rather than throw money away and simultaneously add fuel, cash, to the coffers of those organizations, the board made the logical choice to withdraw the formal prayer."

FFRF attorney Rebecca Markert sent a letter to Elanco dated Aug. 17 stating that FFRF had received a complaint from an Elanco "resident and taxpayer."

Glenn Yoder, board president, noted that FFRF had cited the Third Circuit Court of Appeals decision on Doe v. Indian River School District and that it viewed the offering of prayer at board meetings as "divisive, disturbing, inappropriate and unconstitutional."

Yoder said the board sees value in prayer because it "provides thoughtful reflection before deliberating important decisions.

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" He said the board also believes prayer should be "respectful of individual school board members' own free speech rights."

"However, the board does not wish to expose our taxpayers to the threat of litigation," he said.

The FFRF is a national organization with 18,500 members, including 600 in Pennsylvania.

Markert asserts that Elanco goes "beyond the scope of a public school board to schedule prayer as part of its scheduled meetings."

Jennifer Zeiset, who was scheduled to deliver the October board meeting prayer, instead asked the audience and board to pause for a moment of silence - which will replace prayer at future meetings.

"I do not disagree with the action taken by the board. We had no choice in these difficult economic times, but am troubled by the haste and manner in which it took place," Zeiset said.

She said the board had few choices in the matter, but in "a perfect world" would have preferred to place the prayer issue in the hands of voters.

"We didn't have the option to put the question on any ballot, as the inferred threat of a lawsuit put forth a risk we couldn't afford to take," Zeiset said.

FFRF has sent similar letters to school boards across the state and country.

The group released a press release Oct. 31 that stated: "Another Pennsylvania school board has decided to drop prayer at board meetings after getting a letter from FFRF. That means FFRF is batting 5 for 5 in recent challenges to prayers by Keystone State school boards."

The group in the spring launched a campaign to remove a Christian cross from a war monument in Rhode Island. It has threatened to sue the town of Woonsocket if it refuses to remove the cross from a 91-year-old memorial at the local fire company that honors soldiers killed in World War I and II.

FFRF contends the cross at the public monument violates the constitutional separation of church and state.

Zeiset said the board and the Elanco community will move forward, but admitted it's difficult not to feel bitter about FFRF.

"I believe the unique fabric of Lancaster County is made up of many threads, such as a strong work ethic, fiscal responsibility and faith, and I resent an outside group exerting pressure to force us to change any of those components when I believe the majority of our residents are agreeable to them," she said.

The Octorara Area school board in September dropped recitation of the Lord's Prayer from its agenda under similar pressure from the Wisconsin group.

"We were one of the few districts in the county still conducting a prayer; maybe the only at this point," Superintendent Hollister said.